Brown offers free childcare and ups fight on crime

MANCHESTER (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged to offer more free nursery care to toddlers and to step up the fight against crime.

Struggling to convince voters and dissenting factions in the Labour party he is still the best person to lead Britain through the economic downturn, Brown has said at this year's Labour conference he has the experience to get the job done.

Critics have said too much focus has been put on bailing out wealthy financiers from the scourge of the credit crunch and not enough has been done to help poorer households cope as Britain nears its first recession since the 1990s.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Brown said he plans to extend free nursery care to include all two-year olds.

"What I want us to do is to create thousands more nursery places, not just for three and four-year-olds but also for two-year-olds," he said.

"This is not a government that walks away but a government that's on the side of hard-working families, helping them to climb the ladder."

Currently, parents can claim up to 15 hours of free childcare for three and four-year old children.

Brown, in an article in the News of the World newspaper, also tried to reassure voters about the possibility of a rise in crime as the economy stutters.

"We know that, historically, in tough economic times, there has been a rise in crimes of violence and theft," Brown said.